Reviewer:
mablackledge
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November 26, 2022
Subject:
Asimov's Writing Process
This book also appears within Internet Archive as a 3-volume set, but this version captures all 568 pages.
The beauty of this "Early Asimov" are the fascinating historic notes by the author following each story, and leading into the next. Pages 98-100 provide an excellent example. Be sure to read pages 142-145 where Asimov talks of his early rejections of material by Campbell, plus his friendship with Frederik Pohl and how that ultimately resulted in some of his early publications. It is fascinating to read how attempted use of an outline was disastrous for him, but typing a draft at 90 words a minute produced a book - or at least a short story. And saved soreness in his wrist!
Ah, if only he could have lived another 20 years or more - age 72 was way too early to lose this remarkable human from Earth. But we were so fortunate to have him while we did - even to the point of his commercial ads in 1977 touting the Radio Shack TRS-80 PCs while Bill Cosby was pushing the IBM models, the year some 48,000 PCs were sold worldwide ... but only on this planet.